2001’s WrestleMania X-7 is thought by many to be the best WrestleMania of all-time.
It came at a pivotal point in wrestling history, and featured the controversial Steve Austin
heel turn.
But there’s one storyline that was originally planned for the show, but was eventually cancelled.
I am Luke Owen and this is WrestleMania X-7’s Cancelled Storyline.
WrestleMania X-7 had several big marquee matches including Steve Austin vs. The Rock, Triple
H vs. The Undertaker, TLC2 and Shane McMahon taking on his father Vince McMahon in a street
fight with Mick Foley as the special guest referee.
The storyline had been building since the start of the year, with Vince announcing he
was going to divorce his wife Linda, keeping her in a state of psychosis, and dating Trish
Stratus who was the same age as his daughter Stephanie.
Shane McMahon returned to WWF after a few months off, and the two were set to clash
at WrestleMania.
However a new wrinkle to the story was added, as just one week before the biggest show of
the year Vince McMahon purchased rival promotion WCW, and the Monday Night War had come to
an end.
Shane showed up on the final WCW Nitro to announce that he had in fact purchased WCW
from under Vince’s nose - which would come into play in the summer when WWF held their
Invasion PPV.
The first shot fired in that angle came on May 28th, when Lance Storm interfered during
a Raw match, but there was also discussions of having them involved April’s WrestleMania.
In the end this angle didn’t happen.
Instead Shane McMahon came to the ring and gave a shout-out to the young talent from
WCW, and the camera panned to the skybox where people like Lance Storm, Hugh Morris, Stacey
Kiebler, Mike Sanders and Shawn Stasiak could be seen.
Shane McMahon won the match by hitting the Coast to Coast into a garbage can, and the
WCW Wrestlers applauded politely.
However Dave Meltzer noted in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, “The wrestlers were
told to bring their gear and their championship belts (in the case of Palumbo & O'Haire),
so unless they were shooting publicity photos, they may have had a different idea originally
what they were going to do and put them in a luxury box.”
As it turns out, there was another reason for the WCW Wrestlers to bring their gear.
Lance Storm revealed in 2011 blog post that the original plan was for the WCW guys to
run in and help Shane win – but something happened just a few days before.
Storm wrote, “Unfortunately all these effort to keep our Mania [appearance] secret were
for not because Shawn Stasiak did a radio or Internet interview the day before and stooged
off the whole thing.
The office was furious and many of us speculated that it might cost him his job.”
Stasiak had previously worked for the WWF in the late 90s as Meat, the toy boy for Pretty
Mean Sisters.
However he was suspended and fired in December 1999 for recording a conversation between
Davey Boy Smith and Steve Blackman without their permission.
Although in an interview with Canoe, he argues that he did it as a joke and meant no harm.
“I wasn't working for Hard Copy.
I wasn't working for WCW.
I wasn't blackmailing anybody.
I had no prerogative, no motive whatsoever to do anyone harm...I lost my job, I lost
my dream, which was to be in the WWF.
I think it was a bit extreme for them to do what they did.”
The day before WrestleMania X-7, Stasiak appeared on No Holds Barred radio show and revealed
that the WCW crew were going to be involved in the Shane and Vince match, and even bragged
about getting a WWF deal – which wasn’t true – and said they had plans to bring
in Bobby “The Brain” Heenan in for the new Nitro show, which also wasn’t true.
Former NXT trainer and WCW Wrestler Bill DeMott – who wrestled at this time as Hugh Morris
– added in a 2015 interview on Talk Is Jericho in reference to Stasiak’s interview and
WWF’s reaction to it, “Kevin Dunn had called [John] Laurinaitis and said, “Fire
them all.
We don’t even have them here and this s***’s already started.”
Lance Storm adds in his blog post, “Vince was so mad word had leaked that he killed
the angle and almost sent us all home.
Thankfully we at least got to stay and watch the show.”
Demott explains this is why everyone looked so disinterested during the Vince and Shane
match during the broadcast, telling Chris Jericho, “I went from being in the ring
with Shane McMahon at WrestleMania — that’s going to be my debut in the WWE — to a silhouette
of me and Lance sitting with Mike Sanders and someone else.
The whole time, and you can imagine, Lance is just miserable...
The Invasion came after, but we were supposed to be in the ring in Houston.”
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I’ve been Luke Owen and that was wrestling.